My ear hurts.
That's nothing new.
You're beautiful,
and that's old news,
but I'd listen to it every day
with this bleeding mess on the side of my head.

I'm cramping.
Guess it's that time of the month.
But I love you every time of the month,
every day, every hour, minute, second
breath

Heartbeat.
It sounds in my veins and reminds me of you,
lingering under my skin and keeping me alive.

Beat.
Beat.


*Beat.

You can breathe tonight.
Let no effort bring itself to your tired bones.
I will hold you, until the end,
and no demons will break through to
your porcelain soul.

Let sleep wrap you in its wings.
Dance with me in the stars.
Tonight you are alive,
and you will be tomorrow, too,
and that is glorious,
because this cramped universe
is pure emptiness without you.

Let it be noted, that,
I am one who seldom seeks the presence of another being.
Fortunately,
you are no other being
(I believe you are a part of me).

Tomorrow, you will live on,
and I might not,
and that's alright,
but,
let it be noted, that,
you can still breathe.

I think I could get used to waking up beside you,
and following the catlike curve of that smile
on your celestial canvas
with a trembling brush.
I could paint you in the evenings,
and watch as you colored the world with
such a vibrant palette of a voice
and explained to me the things you love
with the most vivid of words.

Is this all you can describe us as?
Is that all we were to you?
I thought, perhaps,
I had stayed up until four in the morning
on school nights and on breaks
talking to you as though,
Mutually,
nothing else mattered.

I thought, perhaps,
when you told me to wait,
that you didn't have the time,
that it would be worth my patience
(Or perhaps my lack thereof).

I thought, perhaps,
that when I saw your face,
heard your voice,
listened to you chuckle,
woke up from a half slumber and saw you watching me,
some weird mix of admiration and love and lust and passion in your quirky gaze,
we meant something to one another.

But you've revealed the truth, and that's alright.
I can find another Lily in my pond.

"I can't wait to die."

It was my initial thought that these words were the scariest I'd ever heard
roll so easily from a loved one's tongue.
However,
It wasn't until more syllables fell upon
my once deaf ears
that I realized
Death isn't worrisome,
it is guaranteed.
What's got this shiver up my spine and is dilating my pupils
and causing my nails to hunt for blood in the sweaty earth of my palms
is the idea of the feelings I'd never cared to crave
and would unwillingly miss when my carcass was only that.

"I love you."

I see you;
In the horses slowly trotting, riding along at the commands of their masters;
In the leaves clinging desperately to the vulnerable trees, left to the fate of the unrelenting breeze;
In the clouds drifting by, their shapes reforming at the will of the wind;
In the flowers wilting in the sun, screaming at their roots to find some source of water in this drought.

You go at the leisure of the ones who saddle your back,
and hold onto those hurt people, who angrily batter at your cowering form.
You mold yourself to others' preferences,
and are crushed by your god, looking for some hope he may have left you in this seemingly eternal despair.

I see you in my reflection, seeking some sort of break from an already fractured world.
You are broken and the world around you bent,
but there are ways to fix everything,
and I am studying to be a Mender.